


Fraction of a Second

by rainybookshopspoetry



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: 3x05 fix-it, First Kiss, M/M, Queerbaiting? Not in my Goddamn Lobby, Sort Of, The Bisexual Archie Andrews We Deserve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2018-11-16
Packaged: 2019-08-24 09:18:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16637168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainybookshopspoetry/pseuds/rainybookshopspoetry
Summary: He lets Joaquin kiss him, just for a second.





	Fraction of a Second

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for 3x05 - canon except for the introspection because uh, that kiss could have happened in approximately 87239284 better ways. Queerbaiting? I don't know her.

It should be a shock, when Joaquin leans in to cradle his face and kiss him hard on the mouth. He could lie, and say that after everything that’s happened in the past year – Jason Blossom, the Black Hood, all of Hiram’s treachery – that he just doesn’t have the capacity to be surprised anymore. He could blame the exhaustion after days spent in the Warden’s fucked up fighting ring and restless nights spent wracking his brain desperately for a way out; hell, he could so easily chalk it up to the wide-eyed obliviousness Jughead’s so fond of teasing him about. 

But the thing is – 

He sleeps with Veronica, because she walks into the run-down locker-room looking so fiercely beautiful it makes his breath catch, because he’s been exhausted and terrified for days and because he doesn’t know how to tell her that he can’t see a way out of this for them. Not just because of the gruesome, suffocating presence of Hiram that’s been hovering over him since he watched Andre shoot that kid in the woods, but because he’s realized that, at 17, extravagant promises and copious amounts of sex might not be the foundation of a great relationship. 

He goes into the ring, and he puts on a show, and he tries not to think about the look he sees in the other kids’ eyes. It’s a look that says they know there’s no escape route anymore, and despite the optimism he knows he has in spades, Archie has to fight sometimes not to believe them.

He huddles with the other fighters as covertly as possible, tossing around one ridiculous idea after the next about possible escapes. He sees the guards pull out their guns and he sprints for the fence anyway, because they have to try, but then he sees Joaquin lying on the ground and something just – breaks. He doesn’t think about why he takes those precious seconds to turn back, or the expression on Joaquin’s face when he helps him to his feet, or why he throws himself on top of him without a second thought as the bullets rain down. 

Or at least, he doesn’t think about it, until that moment in the changeroom when Joaquin stops wrapping his hands and looks up at his mouth. He’s not sure when they moved from antagonistic acquaintances to grudging collaborators to – this, this weirdly intimate moment that feels heavy, somehow. He does know it isn’t the first time he’s thought about something like this, but between investigating a literal murder mystery and tracking a serial killer and going through what was admittedly a slightly ridiculous parade of girls, he’s been content to let it float in the back of his mind. 

Now, though – Joaquin is looking at him intently, nervously, like he’s not quite sure what to do with himself, and it doesn’t feel like there’s enough air in the room. And Archie’s about to try to run from an inescapable prison by crawling through a grate he’s not sure he can fit through, and his knuckles already ache and he hasn’t taken a deep breath in days and he still has a sharp sting in his hip that reminds him he’s been branded like cattle. 

So he lets Joaquin kiss him, just for a second. He lets himself close his eyes and relax slightly into Joaquin’s touch and admit that yes, he’s wanted this. He lets his world narrow down to the faint scent of Joaquin’s deodorant and the slight rasp of the callouses on his palms and the feeling of Joaquin’s lips pressed against his. He lets himself think about kissing back.

He lets himself think that maybe, if it weren’t for Hiram, or they hadn’t grown up in Riverdale, or Jason Blossom had never shown up dead, maybe there would have been time for more kisses like this. How maybe, if they weren’t stuck in this nightmare, he’d be able to get used to the feeling of stubble against his skin and strong hands grasping him and what it might feel like to get that close to another man without hurting him for a change. 

But the thing is – 

It tastes like an apology. It’s the kind of kiss he gave Veronica the week after he had leaned over and sealed his mouth over Betty’s in the euphoria of chasing down the Black Hood. Joaquin is clutching at him with the same desperation he’d seen in his mom when she’d embraced his dad for the last time, one hand with a white-knuckled grip on the suitcase at her feet. 

Archie pulls back just as abruptly as Joaquin had leaned in. 

“Dude, what are you doing?” Archie blurts out, noticing in a detached sort of way that he doesn’t sound nearly as shaken as he feels. He’s not sure why, but he takes in the panic in Joaquin’s eyes and the way his hands are still shaking and he suddenly has a very, very bad feeling about what’s about to happen. 

After, it’s a blur of white-hot pain and the shock of seeing Mad Dogg in the ring and a pounding in his head that urges him to keep moving even as his lungs burn and his throat aches and blood drips steadily down his left side. He learns about a treacherous game that has half the town enthralled and that one of their parents might be involved in yet another murder mystery and that he doesn’t appear to have been stabbed anywhere fatal – at least according to Toni, who is the closest thing to medical care the Serpents usually get. 

But later, when everyone has dispersed and Betty is sitting guard at the entrance to the bunker, as Archie finally tries to drift off to sleep in the surprisingly comfortable cot bed, he can’t help but think about that split-second kiss in the locker room.


End file.
